


To Be Human

by fanfoolishness (LoonyLupin), LoonyLupin



Series: Starshine Over Beach City: Moments from Steven Universe [33]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Anger, F/M, Heavy Angst, Homeworld (Steven Universe), Steven Universe Future, pink steven
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-24
Updated: 2019-11-24
Packaged: 2021-02-18 08:17:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21541225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoonyLupin/pseuds/fanfoolishness, https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoonyLupin/pseuds/LoonyLupin
Summary: After a terrible accident, Connie visits Homeworld to try and convince Steven he needs her help, but Steven may be too far gone to accept it.  Can he remember what it means to be human?
Relationships: Connie Maheswaran/Steven Universe
Series: Starshine Over Beach City: Moments from Steven Universe [33]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1523993
Comments: 15
Kudos: 167
Collections: Steven Universe Completed Recommended Reads





	To Be Human

**Author's Note:**

> [Based on speculation regarding what we have seen in the first Steven Universe: Future trailer. This story does not tie into my stories Full Disclosure/ice cream sundaes, as they were written before the idea of Pink Steven was released into the wild.]

The warp whistle left a funny taste on her lips, a mineral bitterness. It never failed to make her face twist. Connie shuddered as the warp pad glowed golden around her and the light carried her far, far beyond the Earth. **  
**

The light faded. She stepped down from the warp pad, memory guiding her steps. She knew this path too well. 

Vast spires and columns glittered above her. In the emptiness of the great hall, she heard footsteps, slow, stately, massive. So it was Yellow Diamond greeting her today. Good. Blue was so much harder to speak to these days, and White – she knew it had been years, but Connie still wasn’t sure she could ever forgive White. How much of what had happened then had led to where they were today?

Yellow peered down at her. “You keep trying,” she said, bending lower until her face was only a few feet above Connie’s. She frowned, anxious lines appearing between her eyes and at the edges of her mouth. “Your perseverance is impressive, Connie, but I don’t think he will see you today either.”

“I have to try,” said Connie, blinking back tears. 

“I wish you luck,” said Yellow, straightening back to her full height. “I know he thinks this option is for the best, but I think it’s the wrong one.”

“You and me both,” muttered Connie.

She trailed along behind Yellow, half-running to keep up with the Diamond’s strides. Gems huddled in corners, their voices hushed. Some of them she recognized from her previous trips. Others were new to her, but gratefully, she saw that none of the new ones were pink. 

Yellow stopped outside a familiar door. “If you change his mind,” said Yellow, “let us know. We have been unable to help him, and Blue has been beside herself. Even White is concerned. And I –” She closed her eyes. “I will never fully understand Pink’s choices, and what led her to create him. But I believe I understand enough to know this is not truly him.” 

Connie gazed up at her. “Thank you, ma’am.”

Yellow laid a hand on the white panel far above Connie’s head, and the doors slid open. Her footsteps away echoed in the hall, and Connie stepped inside. So far, so good. Maybe this visit would be different. At least the doors had not been locked today.

Connie looked around. Pink’s chambers had undergone many changes since Connie’s first visit to Homeworld. The pebbles lived out in the open now, their miniature homes and cities forming complex networks climbing up the pink walls. The windows had been expanded, letting in shafts of light in white and blue, pink and yellow. The light bathed rows of plants lining the floor, growing from planters filled with Earth soil and casting shadows against the walls. 

It would have been beautiful, if not for the disturbing cracks in the walls, in the floor, in the windows. She knew what they had to be from, and she bowed her head, her heart heavy.

She walked between the rows of plants, assiduously not looking at places where the pebbles’ homes had caved in, or where they were working to clear rubble from the corner of the largest chamber. She breathed in the rosy scent of the plants, trying to focus on them instead. 

The plants drifted softly back and forth, gorgeous in shades of emerald, magenta, palest pink and lushest fuchsia. They turned and looked at her as she approached, his face echoed in their flowers and their leaves, but they did not attack. Perhaps they knew her face. Perhaps they acted on his orders. Perhaps it was the sword on her back. She did not know. 

Connie reached the far end of the chamber, iron resolve in every line of her body. She turned to the plants, to the pebbles she saw peeking out of their homes. “Steven, I’m here,” she called, setting down her sword on the floor beside her.

The plants shuffled and sighed in their rows. Connie ignored them.

“Steven, it’s Connie. _Come out._ ”

The pebbles watching from the walls shook their heads, whispering to themselves. Connie bit her lip hard enough it hurt.

“Steven Quartz Universe!” she shouted, and her voice rang throughout the chambers, the walls groaning with the sound. “I’ll keep coming, Steven. You can’t stop me. If you won’t talk me today, I’ll be back tomorrow, and the next day, and the next –” She dashed tears away from her eyes with the back of her hand, panting. “You know it’s true. Just come out and talk to me. We can get through this! We’re supposed to do this together!”

A small sound. She almost didn’t hear it at first, her breathing so loud in her ears. But the voice – defeated, faint – was close. “This wasn’t part of the plan.”

She whirled, and there for the first time in weeks, for the first time since it happened, she saw him.

Steven slowly walked out of the rows of plants toward her, his hands shoved in the pockets of his jacket, his head hung low to hide his face. Her heart stuttered in her chest. She didn’t know what she’d expected, but she’d hoped he would be _him_ again. 

Instead he was still pink, his hair magenta, his skin just as pink as it had been that day. Her hand flew up over her mouth as she fought back a cry. Just as quickly, she thrust her hand back to her side.

It was too late. He’d seen her reaction, and even from several feet away, she could see the way he flinched, wounded.

She shook away her shock and ran to him, flinging her arms around him. “Steven!” She buried her face in his neck, and he sank into her arms, trembling.

“I know, Connie,” he mumbled. “But I can’t control it. I don’t know how to go back to how I used to be. I don’t think I can.”

She drew back so she could look at him clearly. Deep purplish shadows hollowed the area beneath his eyes, and his face looked pinched, thinner than before. His clothes had tears and stains in places, the sleeves, the star on his shirt. And through it all he was _pink_ , pink like Rose, like Pink Diamond.

“That’s okay, Steven,” Connie said quickly, a fragile hope bubbling up within her for the first time in a long time. “People change appearance all the time! It’s fine! You’re still Steven –”

“But I’m _not_ ,” Steven snapped, and he backed jerkily away from her. He held out his hands in front of him, staring down at them. A faint pink glow began to surround them. “I’m not human, not anymore. You know what happened. I couldn’t control myself, and –”

“That’s why you need our help!” she cried. “So that no one else will get hurt. And that includes you. I know you’re hurting. Blue and Yellow and even White know it. Nobody wants you to lock yourself up here. We can get through this.”

Steven lowered his hands to his sides. “Then how come you’re the only one here?” he asked, his voice suddenly cold.

“It’s not like that,” she said quickly. “They didn’t want to upset you –”  
  


“No, it’s _exactly_ like that,” Steven growled, jabbing a finger toward her. “They’re afraid of me! And they should be! I shouldn’t be around them, I shouldn’t be around anybody –”

She realized, suddenly, that his hands clenched into fists. Pink light glowed around their edges, strong and shimmering. He was surrounded by it. She knew what he could do with it.

Connie drew herself up to her full height. Maybe the others _were_ afraid, she didn’t know. She couldn’t speak for them. But she knew that he was still her Steven.

“Steven,” she said. “I’m not afraid of you.” She took a step closer. “I want to help you.” Another step.

When he spoke it was an order, harsh, sharp. “Connie, _don’t_.” Then his face softened. “Please don’t.”

“I love you,” she said fiercely, and for an instant, she saw him again – her Steven, peach instead of pink, surprised, joyful, his dark eyes alight as he realized what she’d said. Then the human light in his eyes faded, replaced by a glow of pink. 

_No!_

She closed the distance. She reached out, and through the light, she took his hands.

The pink light imploded around them, a fierce collapse of energy that sank them both to the ground. A huge crack splintered the ground, racing through the chamber, and the plants shrieked in pain or anger, she didn’t know which. She couldn’t tell through the ringing in her ears.

Blearily she pushed herself up from the floor into a sitting position. She tasted blood. 

Beside her, Steven looked horrified, his hands clapped over his mouth. A violet-pink bruise bloomed on his forehead, jarring against the paler pink of his skin. The backs of his hands were cut and scraped, the sleeves of his jacket torn in new places. 

Connie pressed a hand to her head. It came away sticky. She blinked slowly, trying to understand. “What happened?” she asked thickly.

Tears streaked Steven’s cheeks. He pulled his hands away from his face, gasping, his chest heaving. “Connie, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I can’t stop it!” She realized with a jolt what the old tears and stains on his jacket meant, coupled with the bruise on his face, the cuts on his hands. _He keeps hurting himself._

Her head pounded, but despite it, her determination burned within her. “So _let me_ help you, Steven. You can’t do this alone. ”

He looked stricken. “But you’re – you’re bleeding – Connie, what did I do –”

She waved a hand at him angrily. “Yeah, that sucked. But you’re hurt, too. I’ll be fine,” she insisted, but he moved towards her, raising his hands to her face. Though they shook, they were tender, brushing the hair back from her eyes, carefully avoiding the place that throbbed and ached. He pressed a kiss to her forehead. She felt his healing shiver through her, familiar, trusted, safe. The pain in her head and the taste of blood vanished.

“See?” she whispered. “Good as new.”

But he was crying, resting his forehead against hers, his shoulders shaking with muffled sobs. “I can’t protect you from myself,” he forced out. “You don’t deserve that.”

“You don’t deserve this either,” she said, and the words hung between them, painful and true.

His mouth found hers in the silence, the kiss hesitant, searching, soft. She closed her eyes, wrapping her arms around him. For a moment, there was only this: only them. Just Steven close against her, his lips parted, his mouth warm and gentle on hers; just the way their breathing slowed and matched, the fear and pain falling away; just the way she’d missed this, missed _him_ , more than words could say.

Steven broke the kiss, and as he pulled away, the lack of him made the breath catch in her throat. He gazed into her eyes, still not bothering to wipe away the tears in his own.

“I love you, Connie. I’m sorry.” Slowly he got to his feet, moving stiffly. He took a step away from her, then another. He was limping.

“Steven! Come back!” she shouted, scrambling to her feet. 

But the plants closed rank around her, pressing in against her to form a wall so thick she couldn’t squeeze through. Every gap she tried to reach for she found closed by woven vines and broad thick leaves. She reached for her sword, then realized that in the blast it had ended up a good ten feet behind her on the only path that remained open. 

“Stop it, Steven! Make them let me through! I don’t want to fight them!” 

Silence answered her.

The plants pressed and pushed and moved. She tried shoving against them, but every bit of strength she could exert against them was no match for their steady pressure. They forced her back and back until she tripped over her sword. She crouched down to lift it up, but once she stood up again the plants surrounded her so tightly in all directions she couldn’t hope to swing the blade. 

“Steven! Stop!”

The plants rustled around her, Steven’s face in their flowers, in the lines of their vines, in their slow deliberate movement. Suddenly the doors opened behind her and the plants pushed again, and she found herself falling to the floor in the hallway, her sword clattering to the ground beside her. The doors hissed closed. High above her head, the panel Yellow had used to open it flashed red.

“Steven!” Connie sobbed.

She held her useless sword in her lap, knuckles whitening as her hands curled around the hilt. She remembered a boy with a bubble, Stevonnie free and strong, Steven’s shield to her sword; she remembered a boy falling off his bike in the sand, a slow dance on his birthday, the first kiss she gave him, his hand held in hers. 

She leaned against the doors, small and frail and human, and she wished that he was there with her, every bit as human as he used to be. And though she called his name and wept, he did not answer, and the doors stayed closed.

**Author's Note:**

> 1) It's been less than a week since we got the trailer for Steven Universe: Future and I am terrified about what Pink Steven might represent. I suspect something like this or the incident that incited Steven to leave will happen.
> 
> 2) No, I don't want to speculate on what that incident might have been... because this story made me too damn sad already.
> 
> 3) I really hope any Connverse kisses we get in the show will not be THIS sad *cries forever*


End file.
